Spider Ty

I think I had it more "together" in fifth grade than I do now, because this will be the second time I'm citing my fifth-grade-self in this blog... Back in the good-ol'-days, I decided that I would fix all of my problems with a "happy book." The idea was that every single day I would write down the things that had made me happy that day. And, because I thought it was such a wonderful idea, I bought six spiral ring notebooks, wrote in sharpie marker "My Happy Book" on the front, and wrote a name on the inside cover--one for each of my family members.

I don't know whether  any of my family ever used theirs, but I used mine, for about a month, and then it turned into a diary, which isn't really relevant now, I guess. The idea is that a "happy book" has been proven to be a really powerful tool for increasing mental well-being. 

At 21, I don't keep a diary (unless you consider this blog a diary), and I don't keep a "happy book" either. Maybe, though, I can start with a "happy post" where I list the good things about my day. I'm starting to realize Nashville just might not be my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean that it's a totally stale drink I should toss down the drain. 

Lately, lists seem to be the best way to proceed for me, so I'll start there.

Happy Post

1) Ty and I have a place to live, and a fridge full of food... (Note to self: Buy more ice cream.)

And a husband who humors me by taking pictures of me in church clothes.

2) There are two plane-tickets with our names on it for a flight back home, so we can honor one of the most influential people in my life.

3) I have a great camera, computer, and internet, so I can take awesome pictures, and meet with new people.

4) The Red Cross was so busy with blood donors that they didn't have time to honor my appointment. Okay,,. that's kind of negative, and it really upsets me when people don't honor their word, but I am so glad that people are donating blood--it's a really easy way to save a life!

5) Several people back a K-State have agreed to serve as references for me--I'm going to be applying to an Ag Communications program at Oklahoma State University. This is great because one of these people was so unbelievably understanding about my decision not to attend Vanderbilt. It's always a great feeling when someone so whole-heartedly accepts you for who you are.

Their mascot is Pistol Pete... I wonder if there's room for another mascot that goes by the name of "Rattlesnake Sue"? (AKA the rootin tootinest, snakey-killin'est alter ego there ever was.)

6) I have an interview on Tuesday to be a substitute teacher. I think it is definitely going to be a "glamorous" job, even though Ty insists otherwise.

7) Papi is super cute.

And secretly a sumo wrestler... whaaaa??

8) Netflix, you da' real MVP.

9) Good hair days.

10) A husband who still loves me after I send him pictures like this...

And I suppose people who still read my blog after this picture....

11) Tried my hand at book binding... let's be honest, the first attempt was ugly, but, as Ty said in surprise when I showed him the finished product: "It looks like a book!"

12) Finally played Scrabble against Ty... and won! 

By like 48 points... with the word Qat. Not sure what it means, but I'm guessing it's something like "Kelsie creamed Ty at Scrabble and is never going to let him forget it."

13) A beautiful church to go to on Sundays.

14) Had a "Czech Style" Pilsner the other night. I almost forgot how good beer can taste. :) (Yes, Jesus drank alcohol too.)

15) My husband has gotten several interviews for accounting internships... basically because he's awesome, smart, and looks good in a suit.

"Spider Ty, Spider Ty, does whatever a Spider Ty does." - David Stelting.

Fifteen things in the happy post isn't too shabby. I probably won't write a happy post every day, or every month even, but maybe it will be enough to mentally make a "happy list" from time to time.

Yoga

You are not a recipe that's a few ingredients short. You don't have to add anything.

-Yoga teacher quotes

I'm-writing-a-blog face.

If that didn't make you giggle, what will?

The five or so of you who read our blog probably have a few questions... I'll surmise what they might be.

1) What the heck is with that first picture?
2)When is Kelsie going to post a blog about their new home?

3) How's school going for Ty?

4) What have they been doing for the last three weeks?

And, I will try to answer those questions.

First question: Current mood.

Second question: Now.

Third question: How's school going for Ty? Wonderfully, I think. He just started on the 24th, and it's been a big adjustment for him. I'm soliciting a new blog post from him, but he's not as inclined to ramble on about his thoughts and feelings as I am.

Fourth Question: What have they been doing for the last three weeks? We left for Nashville on August sixth. What should have been a ten-hour drive took us over twenty-four hours. Why? Well, between bathroom breaks, (for Ty, me, AND, Papi), breakfast/dinner/supper breaks, a flat tire, gas fill ups, a hotel stay, and gridlock traffic, it extended our trip a little bit. 

Week one in Nashville:

Our first few days we spent driving around the town, looking for somewhere to live. We finally did find an apartment that we could afford. (Rent in Nashville is outrageous!) After we signed our lease and moved in, we spent the next couple of days disinfecting every square inch of the apartment. So by the time we were done, we had an absolutely spotless apartment filled with cardboard boxes. (We now just have an apartment filled with boxes.)

Week two in Nashville:

Orientation. This is where I built up to a week-long mental breakdown trying to decide what my calling is. I decide (for the time being) it's not going to Vanderbilt to become a Nurse Practitioner. Still in mental breakdown mode, still trying to decide what my calling is. Starting the job search. Continuing the attempt at making this house a home. I start going to hot yoga. My blood pressure goes way back down to a normal rate.

Successfully held crow for about .239488237 seconds, so there's that. You get a gold star if you can explain why Papi had to leave his ball under my head!

Week three in Nashville:
Thirty job applications later (not an exaggeration), here we are still beating the bushes for jobs. We've slowly tried to venture out and try new things, but we're a little limited until one of us finds a steady job. Ty's gotten work as a temp. Basically, what he does is sit in a model home and wait for people to come through and look at it. He answers the phone too, but it sounds like a pretty cool gig to me.Ty's starting to figure out the lay of the land, and here I am, still getting lost on my way to yoga. I think Ty's a lot better at big city living than I am, but who knows, I learned to love Prague after about a month, so I guess check in next week and see if anything has changed. On the bright side, I've randomly had the chance to practice my Spanish with some of the neighbors.

Here I am pre-interview! If only a good hair day could win me a job. :)

Side note: Ty just walked by and looked at this as I'm writing. Here's how the conversation went:
Ty: What 'cha doin'?
Me: Writing a blog post.
Ty: About what?
Me: What we've been doing the last three weeks.
Ty: And it's that long?
..... So that's about all you need to know.

Anyway, we've done a few things of note.

1) Taken tons of random selfies (commence montage).

I'm-tired-of-moving face.

Walrus-had-a-cavity-and-had-to-have-one-of-its-tusks-pulled face.

I'm-watching-you face.

My-dog's-cuter-than-I-am-and-he's-not-even-trying face.

Does-wearing-my-dad's-twenty-year-old-Gold's-Gym-muscle-tee-make-me-buff face.

I'm-wearing-makeup-for-the-first-time-in-a-week-and-boy-do-I-look-good face.

2) Watched about four seasons of Parks and Rec. (I hope I'm not exaggerating, too.)

I think this one also qualifies under the selfie list.

3) Had a cardboard sword fight with packing materials.

4) Built two new dressers, a couch, and a bookshelf. *Correction* Ty tells me the correct word is "assembled."

5) Went to a park, checked out a melting bird.

It gets REALLY hot in Tennessee.

6) And a diseased bird.

But, really, what's going on with this bird???

7) And some rats masquerading as birds:

Ducks are gross...

8) Went to Cheesecake Factory for the first time in my life.

9) Entered sugar coma that I am just now coming out of.

10) Tried pin curls.

Curly haired win!

11) Tried a Pinterest recipe.

Pumpkin/cream cheese flavored french toast.

12) Reentered sugar coma.

13) Edited a BUNCH of pictures, updated my business's website and blog, sent a package to family. But for real, check out Reminice Visual Narratives on the Website, on Facebook, and Pinterest, and Wordpress.

This kid is so stinkin' adorable.

14) Wrote a new visual narrative about Ty's grandparents. <3

15) Went on a late-night fun run to the Parthenon and White Castle. 

Not really sure which one was better. I can see why Harold and Kumar made a whole movie about those burgers!

16) Started volunteering as a sponsor for people entering the Catholic Church.

I'm-about-to-meet-new-people-...yikes! face.

17) Wrote the first five pages of what is sure to be a best-selling novel.

So... seventeen things in 24 days plus or minus. I know it's not any sort of spectacular adventure, but we're here, and we're just figuring things out baby step by baby step. I'm all about honesty, and I'm not about to say I'm loving this current situation. But, I am thanking God for another day on this earth, another opportunity to learn, an opportunity to support my husband through his education journey, and an opportunity to be patient and let go.

Anyway, thanks for reading, if you've made it this far, and please don't judge me too harshly on my selfie montage... I've been bored. ;)

Goodbye's and Hello's

Sometimes I get so caught up in saying hello that I forget to say goodbye.

One of my talents, and also one of my weaknesses is my ability to plan. Whether it's five years from now, or five minutes from now I typically have an idea of exactly what I'll be doing. Granted, sometimes God has a chuckle and I find myself doing something entirely different than I thought I would.

Anyway, it's no surprise that I've let myself get so swept away with plans of saying "hello" to Nashville, that I've forgotten to say "goodbye" to my home for the last three years: Manhattan, Kansas.

My dad dropped me off at the dorms of Kansas State University on August 18th, 2012. Savannah and Tucker came with us. Everything I owned was loaded into my car and I was beyond excited to start a life for myself. I said goodbye to my family, and said hello to my room mate for the first time (in-person) met some people on the floor of the dorms, and started considering the dorms my new home.

Over the next several months, I said "hello" to a lot of things, like driving to see Ty in Lawrence every weekend, applying for jobs, and feeling like a speck on the wall in a town where no one knew my family, my dog's name, my siblings' names, where my family's cows were, let alone my name. I said hello to applying to jobs and to being a freshman in college.

My three years of college passed much the same. The sad thing about being in college is that it's such a transitory state. You know that this isn't your permanent home. It's just a stop along the road to a job. So while I was focused on building myself up professionally, I inadvertently built a home for myself--something I didn't realize until I arrived in Tennessee.

Somehow, this transition has been harder for me than it was to go to Europe and be over five thousand miles away from home. I'm still in my own country, and I have to pull out the GPS to figure out how to get to Walmart. I've been here over two weeks already and I still have no idea how to get to the most basic of places. I have to drive on the interstate with hoards of people, go to yoga with hoards of people, shop for groceries with hoards of people, and even live with hoards of people in a gigantic apartment complex. I can't walk outside by myself at night.

I guess what's sad is, is that I'm starting to realize that living in Nashville isn't just a stop along the road in life--it is life. It's not just a six month long exploration of a different land. And I'm realizing that I did build a community in Manhattan. I built a home. I knew exactly how to get to Walmart, I knew how infuriatingly long it would take to find a parking spot on campus, I had people in Manhattan attending my (and Ty's) graduation, cheering us on.

So I suppose my question is, how soon will it take to find something that's hard to say "goodbye" to in Nashville?

An Easter to Remember

Hey this is Ty, the other half of the Stelting clan on this blog (the not so pretty half). This previous week I was lucky enough to be Baptized and Confirmed into the Catholic Church. My experiences with the Catholic Church before this were full of “mysteries” and questioning the sanity of this institution. I decided that, to rationalize this, I needed to join a process that would allow me to understand this chanting and crazy body and blood thing they call communion. I joined RCIA and now I completely understand why we do the things we do and I have no clue why I didn’t do this sooner!

First off, I joined the RCIA process to become a catholic and get our marriage blessed. I had no real drive to Catholicism because it seemed like the same thing to me as compared to other churches. Once they started showing me the meaning behind the rituals, sacraments, and prayers, I began to understand that Catholicism is not just a religion. It’s a way of life. The meaningfulness, love, and hope that I have gained through Christ and his Church has manifested itself through the Catholic faith and ways of teaching. I used to think that Catholics were all these tests and memorizations just to get to stand up and get bread. However, it is not, we now get to understand the true meaning behind the Eucharist (communion) and the meaning behind the Creed. It changed my life like no other organization has.

Now that I have that all out in the open, I really wanted to talk about Holy Week. Holy Week is the last week of lent that is truly sacred and an emotional time for us. There are three ceremonies that I was able to go to but there is importance in every day. I will talk about each and every one that I went to and how it was able to help me feel closer to Jesus and what he went through and the meaning that it had for me.

Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday, you walk into the Church and grab a single palm leaf and go sit down. I always wondered why until I was explained to that it was the same thing that was held up by the people of Jerusalem as Jesus entered. So to celebrate this we physically went outside the sanctuary, prayed to Jesus and held up our palms. Then we walked back to our seats within Jerusalem and reenacted the scenes of how we, the people, who just welcomed Jesus, turned on Him and crucified Him. This was powerful for me because it rooted in me that when we sin, we turn our back on Him. He then died to remind us that no matter what we do, He will always care for us and sacrifice for our love.

Good Friday

Then I went to no other mass because I am lazy and a college student in 21 hours. I wanted to go to Holy Thursday to see the washing of the feet and how they undress the altar. Instead I attended Good Friday mass. We went to Seven Dolors, which I think is a weird name because it is a Spanish/English mix meaning seven pains. It now makes sense because the mass Kelsie and I went to was done in Spanish and English.

Seven Dolors Church

The church is beautiful and the Spanish singer Jorge was absolutely breathtaking. We once again reenacted the moments that led up to the crucifixion and all the way to His death. We read scriptures and sang very emotional song. Women who sat three pews ahead of us were actually crying.

This is the night we venerate the cross which looks like this: 

One-by-one we walked up there and touched, bowed, and even kissed the cross to show the overall importance that Jesus’ sacrifice was. It was truly the pinnacle of the whole service. At our usual church that we go to, they actually dropped huge nails into a bucket. This is just to remind us how real this was and how the death of Christ, God’s only begotten son, was purely for us.

Easter Vigil

The importance of Easter vigil is a celebration of the entrants into the church. I was one of those people who had never been baptized so I joined the portion of the group that had to be bathed naked…okay we just had water poured over our head. Fully clothed (thank God for everyone else who would have had to see me). This was meaningful because I had been sinning for many years and the priest would have had to sit through a one hour confession. I will still try and confess any that lead up to it but this literally washed some weight off my shoulders haha.

The next part was the part that made me worry the most because for a little while, I thought we were going to have oil poured on our head…

Needs some face wash...

That is a zit factory waiting to happen…

Like this guy but only with good smelling oil. Thankfully they didn’t they just added a little to the top of our head and the front of the forehead. They call it chrism oil because it is blessed by our bishop.

But enough about me; this is the mass where we get our holy water for the year and light the candle that will remain lit for over the whole year. All the confirmed and baptized had their first communion and finally got to taste that wonderful sacrament.

Conclusion

It all really meant a lot to me; if it wasn’t for all the help from Kelsie, Steven, and the entire RCIA team, I would not have had a life changing experience. I always wanted to become a more thoughtful, kind, and loving person. I could have done it before but now, I have a road map and a guide that I feel like I can now understand more and interpret the word the way God wanted ME to do.

Here are some of the people that really helped me through just this night.

Kelsie and I

L-R: Father Don Zimmerman, me, and Steven Miller(my amazing sponsor)  in front of the Altar.

Deacons of the parish, L-R: Larry Erpelding, me, Wayne Talbot, and Buzz Harris


THANKS FOR READING!!! 

The Big "M"

Today in Public Health Biology, my teacher was telling us that in the '40s, people just didn't talk about cancer. In fact, it took a brave and informative surgeon general "C. Everett Koop" to start the discussion. Now, cancer awareness is all over the place. No longer is it "The big 'C.'"

Please excuse me while I compare cancer to being married in college.

There's a pretty specific range of reactions I receive when I tell someone I have "The big 'M.'" It's undoubtedly some variation of:

"Why?"
"How old are you?" followed by "You're so young!"
"That's awwwwesome." Followed by uncomfortable silence.

Unless the person I'm speaking to is an anomaly or also married, things become pretty awkward after that conversation. I hope someday I can be the "C. Everett Koop" surgeon general of marriage, because man is this getting old. So, in the spirit of all these blog posts floating around, I present:

Seven things everyone should know about young married women.

1) Yes, I know I got married young. We don't need anyone to remind us that people won't support our union or think of it as commonplace until we hit some magic age barrier that supposedly makes us capable of being married.

2) Yes, I married my high school sweetheart. Since you already kindly asked me how old I am, you know that I'm not old enough to have married anyone OTHER than my high school sweetheart. It's cute... I know.

3) No, I'm not dropping all of my life goals to be a MRS. I'm simply factoring a MR into the equation.

4) Being married IS awesome, and not in an uncomfortable tone. I love having someone to share all of life's precious memories with. That includes the good times, bad times, sickness, health, richer and poorer.

5) I can be married without having student loans paid off, a bachelor's degree, a mortgage, or a 401 K. Marriage is about the commitment and love in your heart and not the size of a diamond or a bank account.

6) "What do your parents think about you being married?" Is not a relevant question to ask a young married person. Do you think if I based my decision to get married on what my parents think that I would be mature enough to be married?

7) Your posts about "40 reasons why you should be single in college" hurts my feelings. I don't insult people for being single in college, and it would be nice to have the same respect.

We all find our "one and only" at different times in life. I know many people that met their spouse as young as fourteen or fifteen. I've also met people that wait until their late thirties to get married. That's great too. The important thing to keep in mind is that marriage is a life-long commitment, which means that it should be--and is for the most part--entered into with great thought and care. The big "M" is also something very personal to the two people getting married, and scrutiny or judgement is not kind and frankly not welcome. So, next time you post something about how great being single is or meet someone married young, just remember that you don't have to promote your way of life, by putting another way of life down.